Martina Hoffmann

Interview with artist Martina Hoffmann —

1. Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Martina Hoffmann and I’m a painter and scuptress, a ‘Visionary Realist’, as I enjoy calling myself.

“Spirit’

2. Why art?
It couldn’t have been any other way. I started creating at a very young age, as a young child, and loved nothing more than drawing, painting, sewing, building.

“Lysergic Summer Dream”

3. What is your earliest memory of wanting to be an artist?
At 3 years old, while traveling on a large merchant ship with my parents for 6 weeks, back and forth between the Northern and Baltic See and to Scandinavia (my father was an engineer and ships were his place of work). I was terribly sea sick and as there was not much else to do, I would try to calm my stomach by drawing for long hours. I remember drawing a mouse and using my favorite color at the time, a light rose. This filled me with great ease and took me deeply within myself, away from the world around me. And I’m still enjoying this escape route today…;-)

“The Portal”

4. What are your favorite subject(s) and media(s)?
Painting with oil on canvas is my primary medium and has remained my preferred creative tool. People, portraits and the realms of expanded states of consciousness, as they are presented in dreams, mediation and during shamanic journeys. Depicting otherworldly realities have for the longest time been my focus in art. Often the female form takes the center stage in the stories told in my paintings They explore ways in which feminine strength can be re-integrated and honored for the greater benefit of us all. I feel that absolute balance between the sexes would bring much healing and peace to humanity as well as our Gaia.

“Méduse”

5. How do you work and approach your subject?
My technique is a mélange of the old ‘Mish Technique’ and various mediums that I’ve discovered to work well together. Each artist has their own well kept secrets. I also enjoy the more physical process of sculpting, which I majored in at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany during my years as a budding artist. My process is one of remaining an open channel and directly downloading imagery and information to my canvas via the ‘superconsciousness.’ As that of any other artist, my work is closely linked to my life and anything that happens within it. So all of this is, experienced through my personal emotional, intellectual and psychological filtering systems and expressed on canvas in my ‘inner landscapes’. All by way a specific energy that moves me on the deepest level of my existence. 
Every painting is a log for my spirit and consciousness as well as a tool for developing and understanding them. Specifically, I first use my paintings as a mirror which will reflect and show me anything that my consciousness is able to perceive. On a deeper level, I use the process of creation for further explorations by stepping through the ‘looking glass’ portal into other dimension. Here I have access to the ‘primordial putty’ and can restructure or re-create my reality, a kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ experience. Creating art can truly be a shamanic journey, highly transformative, healing and transmitting. And it is a powerful meditation practice at that.

“Caught In The Web”

6. What are your favorite art work(s), artist(s)?
I have a special love for all great visionary and illuminated art throughout the ages, chronologically starting with the classics: Hieronymus Bosh, William Blake, Richard Dadd, Gustave Moreau, Gustave Doré, William Turner, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Salvador Dali….and the contemporary: Ernst Fuchs, Mati Klarwein, HR Giger, Alain Margotton, Agostino Arrivabene, Alex Grey, Maura Holden and many more. I see the late Robert Venosa, my husband of 30 years, in a class of his own, as he introduced me to the world of painting. He’s been my greatest direct inspiration and remains my top choice for obvious reasons. My new partner, the French painter Pascal Ferry, has become my ‘now co-creator’ and is right up there with my top list.

“La Chacruna”

7. What are the best responses you have had to your work?
People being touched to the point of crying in front of my work.

“Rocotora Reina”

8. What do you like about your work?
It gives me joy and peace.

“Shapeshifter”

9. What advice would you give to other artists?
Keep creating and stay the course. It is one activity in life that truly connects us to our divinity.
So do make art your mediation….regular practice creates magic and wonders.

“Universal Mother”

10. Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
Creating in a living studio/museum, working on large canvases reflecting light and full expression of consciousness, surrounded by a collection of art, including the work of Robert Venosa and that of the most potent visionary artist of this time. I envision this to be a place of close communication and collaboration with my global artist family, greatly nourishing to myself and those who come in touch it. In other words: I’d like to help birth a physical gateway to a new way of expressing our unity as a global and universal family through art. You asked the question…I gave you my most expanded vision.

“The visionary artist makes visible the more subtle and intuitive states of our existence and creates maps and symbols reflecting consciousness and the mystical experience. My work is an attempt to portray Source Energy as the one universal force beyond the confines of cultural and religious differences. By embracing our oneness as a global human family, the interdependency of all life as well as our universal interconnectedness, we have the opportunity to heal and transform the planet’s current state of woundedness and to create a shared global reality, as beautiful, healthy and strong as our imagination permits.”

 

Martina Hoffmann

LINKS —

Website: www.martinahoffmann.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MartinaHoffmannFineArt?ref=ts&fref=ts
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/art2508/martina-hoffmann-painting-gallery/

YouTube—

Martina Hoffmann on art & creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTtWWigfElw
Martina Hoffmann and Robert Venosa: ‘To Inspire’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nze6HseggWo
Martina Hoffmann on art & creativity – Boom Festival 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTtWWigfElw&t=21s
‘Portrait Of Ram Dass’ by Martina Hoffmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0j1XdkdZSI

For any questions please contact the artist via the contact page on her website or via personal message on her Facebook artist page